Magazine Advertisment Analysis

We had a group discussion and looked at each magazine advertisement individually. Emily wrote down notes from what we discussed and she then created these:

(These are general magazine advertisements, we will go on to look at ones in our music genre.)

Usual Cover and Advertisement Structure Analysis by Ana

Typical Magazine Cover Structure:

Typical Album Advert Structure:

Magazine Selection By Calvin and Emily

XXL Magazine - This is one of our magazine choices, we chose this because its content is based on hip hop and mainstream artists and music genre. Our single, 'I wanna be a star' focuses on an artists rise to fame and wanting to become recognised in the music industry. our group feel our music genre is relevant to the magazine and that it will promote our music and the artist.

Rolling Stone magazine - This magazine is another choice we have as it a well known and recognised magazine, which was created in the late 60's. its target audience is teenagers to young adults, so we feel this is suited to our music genre as this is the target audience we are trying to reach. Well known artists have been featured in this magazine, this promotes the artist as the magazine is popular.

RWD - This is our last choice for our magazine selection. This is a UK based magazine, targeting the youth. It mainly focuses on the dance genre, but features new and up and coming artists in our music genre. Through this our music genre is being promoted to a wider audience.


From this research we have made three choices of magazine we feel would be the best to advertise our music genre and artist. Our first choice mainly focuses on R&B and Hip Hop so it is likely this magazine will promote our artist well. Both the first and second magazine choices we made are international magazines, which would promote our artist further. RWD will promote our music in the UK to our target audience. As this magazine is danced based and promotes parties and gigs this would allow the audience to create remixes with our music, further promoting our music and artist.

Music Magazines research and analysis, by Ana

Top pop/Hip-hop/R&B magazines:

-          Vibe Magazine

-          The Source

-          XXL Magazine

-          Rolling Stones

-          URB Magazine

-          Rap-Up

-          Spin Magazine

-          Right On!

-          Blues & Soul

-          Murder Dog Magazine

-          Scratch Magazine

-          Pound Magazine

-          The Situation

-          Elemental Magazine

I’ve been doing some research and decided to analyse these three music magazines because their content is based on different music genres. This will allow us to see the differences between them and to be able to choose the best one to promote our album.

1:

Rolling Stone is an international magazine founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner (who is still editor and publisher) and music critic Ralph J. Gleason. This magazine was known for its political coverage in the 1970s, however, in the 1990s it changed its format to appeal to a wider audience, often focusing on actors and pop music. This led to criticism that the magazine was emphasizing style over substance. 

2:

Vibe is a music and entertainment magazine that provides information on R&B and HipHop artists, actors and other entertainers.  After shutting down in Summer 2009, InterMediaPartners bought Vibe and is now issued four times a year with double covers. Now it has a larger online presence and it is aided by the Vibe LifeStyle Network, a group of entertainment/music websites under the Vibe brand. The magazine's target audience is young, urban followers of hip-hop culture.

3:

Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr. In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard. It pointedly provided a national alternative to the Rolling Stone's more establishment-oriented style. 

History of Music Magazines, by Ana

Font Analysis By Emily

Font Analysis

I am focusing on the font on these album covers and if they are effective, or not, and if they fit the R&B/ Hip Hop genre.

1. Chris Brown 'Fallen Angel':  This font is bold and uniquely shaped. The artists name  is quite large in comparison with the album name which is much smaller underneath, in a different colour. This font is quite detailed because of the small motif inside the 'O' and the underlining of the letters 'OWN'  which could hint at an underlining meaning. Overall this font fits the R&B genre well,especially because it is in capitals which adds a sense of power and success.

2. Jamie Foxx ' Best night of my life': This font really stands out against the dark background. The artists name also stretches to fill the width of the cover above the image of him, showing he is promoting himself as the main focus is on him. The album's name is much smaller underneath the artist name, but is in the same font which matches with the main title. All lettering on the cover is in capitals and the font is quite  modern and contemporary because of its curved edges and small details such as the gap which should connect the 'A' together.

3. Jazmine Sullivan 'Fearless'. This artist is not instantly recognizable from the album cover. This cover focuses on the artist and promoting her through large capital lettering which clearly shows her name so that people can see what she is called from a glance in a shop for example. The font is bold and quite wide/chunky bringing the viewers attention straight to her name and image. Her surname is in a smaller regular font which is stretched out with gaps in between and the album's name is all one word on the end. This font fits the R&B genre, but not as well as the previous two album covers. I think the artists image aids the font in looking effective.

4. David Guetta 'The world is mine' Feat. JD Davis: This lettering is positioned in the middle of the cover, unlike the three other covers I have looked at. This cover does not feature a image of the artist so the font is the main focus of the cover. The artist name is the largest with the album's name only slightly smaller, showing that the artist is easily recognisable just by his name (and the font his name is always in on his album covers) so he does not need an accompanying image of himself. The 'Feat JD Davis' lettering is  very small showing a collaboration with another,less well known and recognised, artist. Overall this font definitely fits the R&B genre as it is in block capitals with interesting eye catching features such as all the A's are missing their central connections and the white contrasts against the dark purple/black background.

From this analysis I have found that these points make a good font that will fit our genre:

• Capital/block lettering- suggests power and authority of artist
• Colour of font should contrast against background or image if we want to promote our artist's name.
• Large lettering for the artists name and slightly smaller lettering for the album's name.
• Interesting features to our font: e.g logos/motifs, unusual layout or arrangement of lettering,etc.
• Unique shapes/effects on title and name of album/artist.

Album Cover Discussion

Album/Digipak Analysis by Calvin

As we are creating our own Digipak we have to analyze some existing album digipak so that we get an idea of what is the appropriate content, and that our digipak does not go into the wrong genre.

This digipak is from Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III album. The album cover shows Lil Wayne as a baby, this style has been used by other artists too such as The Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die:

Lil Wayne's digipak shows a lot of close up of him which could imply that he is marketing himself as well as his music. The use of two colours: black and red is effective as it maintains the stability of the digipak. 

This is Kanye West's Graduation Digipak. His digipak is very different from Lil Wayne as his shows more artistic side: cartoon, more than two colours, and none of his image. The cartoon bear could be Kanye West himself, this could be his alter ego as some artists sue such techniques to market themselves such as Nicki Minaj who uses a lot of alter ego (Harajuku Barbie, Roman Zolanski, and more), as well as Lady Gaga (Jo Calderone). This technique allows their target audience to see a different side of the artist, this could mean that the artist has more than one side and that the audience could see a different yet same artist and increase the acknowledgement of the artist. 

Front:

We could see by the front and back of the digipak that it has some kind of narrative or whatsoever. It shows the bear setting off with its jetpack. This links to the title 'Graduation' which means that now that he is graduated he can now reach more freedom. We could also see some features of future reference such as the DeLorean which is famous from Back To The Future series, A jetpack. This could mean that his music has techno-futuristic flair to it.

Back:

Inside his digipak contains the cd, as well as the list of songs, acknowledgement to the production cast, and lyrics to each songs.

Peer Assessment Feedback By Emily

Good points about our music video:

• Mise-en scene enhances the effect
• Lyrics and visuals are effective
• Pace is well maintained
• Good lip-syncing
• Editing so far is on the beat and releates well to the genre
• Excellent setings, especially the graffiti
• Different shot types and distances
• Characters and props
• Setting
• Use of night and daytime
• Good costumes and clothing
• The studio scenes
• Good colourisation
• The range of different angles we shot at
• Good dancing fits within genre well
• Good use of splitscreen

Things we need to improve on:

• Lighting (which we are currently improve as well as the colour on each shot in our music video)
• Effects and transitions, we need to experiment with these like others do with the R&B genre.
• Improve some of our lip-syncing (we are doing some extra little bits of filming today, of calvin, so it is clear what he is saying)
• More close-ups of Ana singing ( we can crop shots to allow this)
• And one of our backing dancers, he was dancing awkwardly (!)

Editing List by Calvin

• October 18 - Recording Studio
• October 31 - First Chorus
• November 1 - Opening
• November 3 - First Chorus
• November 7 - First Chorus
• November 8 - First Chorus
• November 10 - 2nd Verse
• November 11 - 2nd Verse
• December - Final editing: colour scheme, transitions and effects